Taylor Swift Hopes to ‘Evolve and Try New Things’ on New Album

In many ways, Taylor Swift seems to have come into her own in the past two years. With the release of 'Speak Now,' she brought her own writing prowess and her own raw emotions to the table. Now, with a mature new look and riding the coattails of a very classy Grammy performance (and with two new Grammys to her name), the 'Mean' singer has officially established once and for all that she's on the scene to stay. And this leaves fans wondering what approach she'll take with her next record.

In a recent interview after the global release of her 'Safe and Sound' video, featuring the Civil Wars, Swift tells MTV that while 'Speak Now' was a time to write on her own, this next record has been a time to collaborate with people she's always wanted to work with. And no matter what her label pushes for, she maintains that she's not about to turn in this album until she's absolutely sure it's finished.

"So far, I've been writing so much in the last year and the label keeps telling me, 'All right, we're finished; all right, we're satisfied; OK, this is done now.' And then I just keep writing and I keep turning it in in different versions," she says. "I'm going to work on it until I literally have zero time left to work on it, because I'm having so much fun working on this album." As Swift is collaborating with people from every part of the music industry, she says her top priority now is learning and just taking it all in.

"I'm trying to be as much of a sponge as possible," she spills. "You have to evolve and try new things and change and that's what I've loved to do with this album." Even with all the changing she's doing, though, she's not diverting her attention from her go-to muse: love or lack thereof.

"I think that love is always going to be a huge theme in what I write about just because there are no two similar relationships, there are no two times that you feel love the same way or hurt the same way or [feel] rejection [in] the same way," she explains. "It's all different and I'm fascinated by that. I really love to go back to human interaction and the way we make each other feel. But that at 22 is different than it was at 18 or 19 when I made my last album and 16 and 17 when I made 'Fearless.' As you grow, you change in the way you process emotion."